Plenty of edits to the pending budget received a preliminary nod from the Jefferson City Council on Thursday evening.
During a meeting, the budget proposing $36.31 million in expenses was edited after Ward 5 Councilman Jon Hensley raised several budget cuts and plenty of additions.
"OK, that was a lot," Hensley said after presenting the material.
"I would propose this entire presentation as a slate. If people have changes that they'd like to propose we can go through those one-by-one, but I would make that motion to adopt the spending and modifications in this presentation," he added.
The proposal included spending surplus Sales Tax G dollars and an overall increase of expenditures to $36.69 million. It was eventually approved by a majority vote.
Ward 2 Councilman Mike Lester was the single member to vote against Hensley's approach. During the meeting, he said he was concerned about figures being too conservative.
Ward 1 Councilman David Kemna was absent from the meeting. The remaining eight members voted in favor of the changes, and it became new fiscal framework.
Some changes include:
• Reducing the mayor and council's elected salary by $6,592.
• Reducing chemicals expenses for the Public Works department by $10,000.
• Reducing streetlight and stop-sign repairs expenses for Public Works by $10,000.
• Reducing vehicle and equipment parts for Public Works by $60,000.
• Reducing gas expenses for the fire department by $15,000.
• Reducing gas expenses for the police department by $35,000.
More than 40 cuts were made Thursday, some smaller amounts than others.
"I had a group of I think it was 19 items across the administration budgets that I proposed reducing by 30 percent," Hensley said. "The 30-percent items were office supplies and a number of other areas: some professional services, some training, education, postage, and some reduction to rewards program, miscellaneous and other operating expenses."
The vote does not make the 2023 budget official, however, as council is still finalizing it before the Nov. 1 deadline. All edits are subject to change.
For the budget to be adopted, the council would need to approve it during a regular council meeting.
Nine additions, some that included ARPA money, received preliminary approval at the meeting. Those include:
• Funding compost services to provide it free for residents, costing $82,321.
• Funding the regional Economic Development partnership, costing $35,000.
• Funding a police sergeant position to manage grants, costing $73,096.
• Funding for police locker room renovations, costing $220,635 of ARPA money.
• Funding for demolitions, costing $80,000 of ARPA money.
• Funding for fire shift supervisor position, costing $67,456 of ARPA money.
• Funding for Public Works concrete core drill, costing $4,000 of ARPA money.
• Funding for streetlight replacements, costing $12,000 of ARPA money.
Spending some of money left over from Sales Tax G was also approved with the same vote.
City staff estimates about $3.9 million remained from Sales Tax G, which ended collection last spring. The council has the ability to spend those funds before or after the budget process. In Mayor Carrie Tergin's proposed budget, she listed several extra items to fund, which amounted to about $1.2 million.
The edits were a combination of additions and cuts to the mayor's $1.2 million list. In the end, what received preliminary approval was $835,595 more in spending and included the following items: three police vehicles, tech storage, future investment in the fire department fleet, fire ballistic protection and investment in police body and car cameras.
What was cut from the mayor's $1.2 million list was: a replacement hose for the fire department, a central maintenance truck and two Public Works heavy-duty trucks.
Pending city budget gets heavy edit - Jefferson City News Tribune
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